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Saturday, 16 June 2012

Vegan Treats: Chocolate Crackles

God, making these made me feel like I was 6 again. Not that I made chocolate crackles when I was 6, but I ate a lot of them.

I did try to make a cake when I was 6. Mum was out and I managed to convince my dad I knew how to bake a cake on my own.

And in my defence, my time spent in the kitchen with mummeant I knew what ingredients to use - I just had no concept of how much of anything to put in. So I made an educated guess. Which at 6 meant drowning the recipe in sugar. Oh, and I also decided to make it green. The result was a slooshy, flat, lopsided zombie looking concoction. And totally inedible. Who knew baking cakes involved more than throwing ingredients in together and hoping for the best?

I decided to try my hand at vegan sweets because I wanted to make something for my husband to take to work to share (how very 1950's, I know), and one of my husband's colleagues is vegan.

I scoured the interwebs for vegan recipes ideas, when it suddenly dawned on me that one of the easiest and quickest recipes in the world was inherently vegan - chocolate crackles!

I used the recipe found here on the Cadbury website, but made one change: I substituted rice bubbles (which can contain traces of milk) for Abundant Earth Puffed Rice, the healthy (and vegan friendly) alternative to traditional rice bubbles, which contains 100% whole brown rice grains. Sounds kind boring, I know, but Oh My God, if you haven't tried them you seriously have to. Like right now. Go out and buy some right now. They make for a surprisingly tasty breakfast.

Also, interesting side note, turns out copha (the stuff that sticks chocolate crackles together), though horrendously unhealthy, is completely free of palm oil! So chocolate crackles are good for vegans, South-east Asian rainforests and orang-utans! Bonus!

What also makes chocolate crackles a winner for me is the pure simplicity of them. I love myself a quick, easy recipe where you just bung everything together.